The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

Odysseus, who had used subtle words to draw information from many men, recognised that Podaleirius was playing the same trick on him now, lulling him into letting slip the dangerous truth of what had happened in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo. He could refuse to answer, of course, and the conversation would end there and then. But he knew Podaleirius was a man of integrity and was not one of Agamemnon’s many spies. He felt he could trust him with the anxieties that had been troubling him about his captain.

‘His father wanted to speak with him, hold a parley on neutral ground here in the temple. Yet he knew Eperitus was too proud to listen to him. So he sent a woman to entrap him, to whisper in his ear as they shared a bed, to slowly and lovingly persuade him that he had misunderstood his father all along; that all he wanted was to offer a deal to Agamemnon that would ensure peace. And so Eperitus agreed, knowing it was treachery to meet with an enemy but in his heart hoping that the offer was genuine and the war could be brought to a close. He did it for my sake, so that I would be released from my oath and could go back home to Ithaca and my family. But he was wrong. His father did not want peace, but power. He offered to open the city gates in exchange for Priam’s throne. Agamemnon would receive his fealty and he would receive a crown, with Eperitus as his heir to continue his legacy. It was nothing more than Alybas all over again and Eperitus saw straight through it.’

‘Then he refused.’

Odysseus nodded. ‘Though his refusal came at a price. There was a fight and Eperitus’s former squire, Arceisius, was killed. He blames himself for the lad’s death and now he’s more determined than ever that his father should die. But this anger isn’t good for him. It holds him back, gnaws away at his soul.’

Podaleirius pursed his lips and looked over at the seated figure.

‘That isn’t the posture of a man burning for revenge. There’s something else. The woman you mentioned – his father’s servant – he fell in love with her, didn’t he.’

‘And she with him.’

‘Genuinely?’

‘Yes, though that wasn’t part of her mission. And now they are separated by the walls of Troy and her treachery. His sense of honour won’t let go of that, though I wish it would. It’s love he needs, not revenge.’

‘Now you’re beginning to sound like a healer,’ Podaleirius said with a smile.

‘Are you ready?’ Odysseus asked.

He looked Philoctetes up and down, barely able to believe the change in him. The wild, half-mad wretch they had found on Lemnos looked almost human again as they stood waiting outside Agamemnon’s palatial tent. After a night of fitful dreams in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo, he had woken at dawn refreshed and free from his pain. More miraculous still, when Podaleirius had changed his dressing the wound was clean and already beginning to heal – a result that Podaleirius admitted was beyond even his skill and could only be attributed to the gods. The rest of the day had been spent at the temple, awaiting the summons to the Council of Kings. While Eperitus had remained silent and reflective, Odysseus had put the time to good use. He cut Philoctetes’s hair and trimmed his beard, and, after he had bathed, gave him fine new clothes. By the time the messenger from Agamemnon arrived, he was recognisable as the man who had set out with them from Aulis ten years before. The only differences were his wasted limbs and painfully thin body, and the stick that he was forced to lean on as his foot recovered. He also seemed to have put aside his animosity toward Odysseus, accepting the Ithacan’s help without grudge and even asking him to carry his sacred bow and arrows – rolled up in a cloth – as they set off for the Council. Odysseus felt no qualms, though, that the change had come about because he had tricked Philoctetes into believing Heracles had ordered him to go to Ilium. If it brought the defeat of Troy closer, it was justified.

‘I’m ready,’ Philoctetes replied.

‘Then let’s enter,’ said Eperitus with a nod to the guards, who pulled aside the entrance to Agamemnon’s tent and ushered them in.

Though it was late in the evening, the summer sun had not yet disappeared beyond the edge of the world and its distant fire gave the flaxen walls and ceiling of the great pavilion a pink tinge. The air inside was warm and stuffy from the heat of the day, the flames of the hearth and the press of bodies that had crammed in to witness the return of the man they had left for dead. The smell of fresh sweat mingled with the sweet aroma of roast meat, spiced wine and the platters of still-warm bread that were laid out on the long tables around the hearth. Behind them, crowded thigh to thigh on the low benches, the kings, princes and commanders of the Greek army fell suddenly silent and stared at Philoctetes.

The archer shuffled forward, leaning heavily on his crutch.

‘You have beef?’ he asked, looking at the overlapping platters, stacked like so many pebbles on a beach. ‘And red wine?’